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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
3 1924 055 323 533
The original of this book is in
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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924055323533
fHONiTON LACE Industry. \ sk^.^s
♦ V
RETURN to an Address of the Honourable The House of Commons,
dated 20 March 1888 ;—/<»■,
" COPY of Report of Mr. Alan Cole, Commissioner from the South
Kensington Museum, on the present Conditipn and Prospects of tlie
HoNiTON Lace Industry."
Home Officej^ 1888.) ^- ^- STUART-WORTLEY.
{Sir John Kennaway.)
Ordered, by The House of Co mnions, to be Printed,
19 April 1888.
LONDON: '
PRINTED BY HENRY HANSARD AND SON;
AND
Published by Etee and Spottiswoode, East Harding-street, Lcmdon, E.C
and 32, Abingdon-street, Westminster, S.W. ;
Adam and Chablbs Black, North Bridge, Edinburgh ;
and Hodges, Figgis, and Co., 104, Grafton-street, Dublin,
124.
'V
COPY OF REPORT. ON THE.
COPY of Report of Mr. Alan Cole, Commissioner from the South
Kensington Museum, on the present Condition and Prospects of the
HoNiTON Lace Industry.
Exeter, 31 May 1887. I called on Mrs. Treadwin, purveyor of laces to
the Queen. Mrs. Treadwin is well acquainted with the condition of the
lace business during the last 40 years. At the time of the Exhibition in
1851, she supplied information to Sir Digby Wyatt for his article on lace-
making in his book, " Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century," published
in 1853. When, in view of " Technical Education," at that time Mr. Octavius
Hudson was deputed by the Department of Science and Art to report upon
the condition of the lace industry in Devonshire, he derived informati^^from
Mrs. Treadwin ; and supplied her with a design for a flounce, which she got
worked and exhibited in Paris in 1855. Sir Stafford Northcote placed Mrs.
Treadwin in communication with the School of Design at Somerset House,
and she obtained one or two designs from Mr. Slocombe, &c.; but it appears
that the student designers at Somerset House were either unable or un-
willing to adopt or make use of suggestions given to them in respect of
certain technical necessities to be complied with by anyone designing for
the Devonshire pillow-made laces. Although she has largely dealt in
the varieties of Devonshire pillow-lace, Mrs. Treadwin has made experi-
ments with other kinds of lace ; and some of her best workers have
produced faithful copies, in some cases actual fac-similes, of Venetian needle-
point lace of the 17th century. (See specimen in the South Kensington
Museum.)
Mrs. Treadwin's best lace-makers are those who 30 years ago were trained
at one or other of her lace-making schools. These workers are now scattered
in different towns in or near Devonshire. Mrs. Treadwin finds their work
better than any she can obtain elsewhere. She considers that the deteriora-
tion of the general run of village-made lace is due in one respect to the
absence of regular practice. So many workers merely take up their work
spasmodically. If a demand comes, there is haste to supply it, and a con-
sequent sacrifice of quality.
Mrs. Treadwin produces standard pieces up to which her workers have to
work. She rather complained that taste in the worker had not been culti-
vated for the benefit of the manufacture. The wholesale trade has
encouraged hastily-produced laces of poor quality. Mrs. Treadwin con-
sidered that a well-made lace from a good design can always sell at a good
price. The workers are gradually dying off. No new hands are being
trained to succeed them. Lace-making might be taught in schools. It was
no use to begin to teach a child who had passed the 4th or 5th standard.
Such children, in fact, won't learn -the, art.,
Mrs. Treadwin thought that anything that could be done to call public
attention to the gradual demise of the industry would be useful ; and that
workers might get hints from old specimens, lectures, and such like. If a
model lace-making school were started in Exeter, she would be glad to do
what she could to help it by means of advice, in respect of material,
patterns, &c.
1st June. I visited Beer (about a mile to the west of Seaton), and called
upon B., a dealer, who keeps a small grocer's shop. His daughters under-
stand how to prick patterns, join, lace together, and make pillow-lace. He
buys sprigs from the laceymakers, and has them joined together, and made
up into collars, cuffs, &c., by his daughters. He employs some 30 workers
or so, frojn. time to time. Twenty years ago there; were probably nearly
400 workers at Beer, now there, are not more than 60 or 70. No children
are taught to make lace, B. remarked how thei schools werd now " learning "
the children to sew and, knit,, which he thought they -might 4saeasily learn at
home from their parents. The schools did not " learn " the childreaf- any-
thing they could get a livelihood out of afterwards. In the old " lace schools "
^
HONITON LACE INDUSTEY.
«
of 20 years or so ago, the dame who kept a school taught the children how
to read ; but not how to write, nor to cypher. The parents used to send
their children to be taught lace-making. It took about a year and a-half to
turn out a lacemaker. The schoolmistress would give the instruction, in
return for which the children had to give her the results of their labour ; or
else, she would take pupils upon payment of 1 *. a week for the first month
and 4 c?. a week afterwards. These " lace schools " closed because the demand
for lace fell off so much, and then, when there was a slight revival, the parents
declined to let the children go. Children of 12 or 13 who have passed the
4th standard are too old to then begin learning lacemaking. Besides, they
look to do better class of work, and take to dressmaking, or go into
service for the season at Seaton. There are a number of idlers notwith-
standing ; and, although the earnings of a lacemaker may not in bad times
be more than 3 .s. a week, they would be the better for that, if they could
make it, than nothing. Competition with machine and foreign laces has
lowered the price of the labour. The last really good season was 10 years
or so ago. At that time almost every' female in the place made lace.
I next called upon C, who, like B., keeps a grocer's or general stores shop;
She made remarks about the industry, the teaching children^ the schools, &c.,
to the same effect as B. She thought the " book-learning " had killed the
trade. C. occasionally tries a new pattern ; "sometimes," as she said, " we
sees a new wall paper, and prick a pattern off it, changing a bit here, or
leave a little, or add a little." Twenty years ago C. took 40 T. a week, chiefly
for work for Mr. D. (a dealer who died some years ago, worth, it is said,
over 70,000 I.) When the demand began to decline, C. bought lace as a
dealer on her own account. She finds it best to keep to the old patterns,
her experience being that when she produces a new one and offers it, the
"gentlefolks" call it "machine." The sale at best is a "haphazardly"
thing. Sometimes she sells a pound or two's worth of lace a week, some-
times 5 /., and sometimes not a shilling's,. nor a sixpence's worth even.
Visiting two other lace shops, I found them kept by lace-makers them-
selves. One by E. She says new patterns are wanted. She could prick
off any that might, be given to her. She tries to sell her lace direct to
customers ; because, when she takes it to the dealers, they offer tenpence for
a shilling's worth, and make you take the tenpence in goods. The dealers,
,in fact, get all the profit any way, whether they pay you in goods or in
money. A lace worker who can sit at her work for ten or twelve hours
daily may earn 9d. to 10 d. a day. E. finds that troublesome patterns don't
pay as well as simpler ones.
Upon my return homewards, I called at the vicarage to see Mr. Le Geyt,
■to whom Mr. C. E. Peek had given me an introduction. He would be glad
.to welcome anything that might do good to the village, and thought it might
be useful to try " optional " instruction in lace-making in the school, and
-encourage it by payment on results.
In the afternoon I went to Colyton, and I called at the chief lace-maker's.
F., who had been in the business for fifty years, and more. He has a con-
siderable stock of the commoner sort of lace, and I purchased a few specimens
.at the cost of production {see 1). In past years, F. used to travel all over
the kingdom with his specimens ; now he is too old. Few, if any, dealers
travel now. He also keeps a very limited general store shop, and gets his
lace in by bartering goods for it. He says that there may be now some
20 workers at Colyton. Formerly he used to employ 100 at a time. Many
lace-makers now have taken up with putting bristles into handles for the
brush manufactory at Axminster.
Some few old women at Colyton earn 1*. or 2 s. a week a.t lace-making,
,and get out-door relief as well. '
2nd June. Drove over to Branscombe, a small village down in a dell
towards the shore, like Beer. G. keeps the grocer's and general store shcf>
here, and deals in laces as well, chiefly of the commoner kind, though she
had sprigs and small objects of fineish work and thread {see 2).* She finds a
fairly ready sale for her lace. She gets it in from some thirty or forty-
workers,
* This Plate was not printed, but was deposited in the Library of the House of Commons.
124.
4 COPY OF EEPORT ON THE
workers; she buys quantitiesof sprigs, which she arranges in different patterns,
and joins together. There have been no new patterns lately. A few of the
workers teach their children to make lace. "G." pricks the drawings for the
workers, who, she says, are not, as a rule, at all " way wise " in pricking
patterns. She is afraid that when she goes there will be no one to carry On
the business. Her daughter does not care about it. I bought from her some
specimens of various qualities of work and thread.
"H." a second dealer in Branscomb, keeps no store shop, but deals
only in lace. She says trade is very bad ; something is wanted to revive it.
Formerly she employed 40 and 50 workers ; now scarcely half-a-dozen. The
large dealers, she says, beat the workers' prices down as low as possible.
Only a few weeks ago a traveller had some of her lace at 16.?. lid. a yard,
and wrote to her to say the best offer he had had was 65. a yard for it.
" H." gave me information as to the thread used. It is almost all made at
Nottingham. The different sizes are identified by the number of skeins to
the J oz. hank. The coarser are what are termed 6 and 8 " skip" (or skein).
The finest "H.'s" workers use as a rule is 16 to 18 " skip." Ten years ago
" H." would get rid of as much as 100^. worth of lace a week, whilst now 10?.
worth a week is a good quantity. She complains that the industry stagnates
for want of new and young hands. Children are kept at school, and learn
to grow "proudlike, and above work." " I think," she said, "our country will
" come to feel it some day, if they don't now, what with our children being
" put to so much schooling, and not brought up as they used to be to a trade
" or occupation." She hoped lace-making might be taught in schools ; but
" then it would not be much use unless trade revived." I bought from her
a small specimen of 12 to 14 skip thread lace (see 3).* Later, I called on
Mr. Swanborough, the vicar, who would favour lace-making being taught in
schools, as beneficial to the village.
3rd June. To Sidmouth, where I called upon " I." the principal lace
dealer here. She does not, however, * supply the trade, but deals with
private customers, preferring to produce as much as possible of the finer
laces. She does not employ more than 10 or 12 workers now. She gets
in lace worked by others who bring it to her. Three years or so ago,
one of the best orders she had was for a flounce, at 50 guineas a yard.
For this she used 22^ skip-thread. It took two years to make, and on its
completion the workers had got into good training and organisation, so
that had fresh orders for this class of work then come in they could have
been well carried out. But if a similar flounce were now wanted it would
take three years at least to make. The absence of regularity in employ-
ment of the better hands necessarily tells upon the quality of such work
when from time to time they may be called upon to produce it. " I.'s"
experience is that it is only from private customers that orders for fine
work are received. And the failure in a steady flow of such orders is chiefly
due to public taste setting in the direction of effective laces at prices lower
even than those paid for the Belgian and French hand-made laces. " I." has
taken many prizes at the Bath and West of England Society's shows. Just
at the present, she thinks there are slight symptoms of improved demand ;
but she finds her own trade somewhat affected by the business, in commoner
laces, done by a neighbouring linendraper. I bought from her specimens of
work done in 12, 16, and 22^ skip-thread (see 4 and 5).
I next called upon " J.," who has almost quite retired from the business
with which she has been connected for over 45 years. She is sorry that
foreign laces should command a sale to the exclusion of those made at home.
Sixty years ago the state of the lace trade was almost as bad as it is now.
It got an impetus by, Queen Adelaide's wedding dress being made at
Honiton. "J.," however, has depended upon orders from wholesale
merchants, and has rarely taken orders from private customers. She used
to travel with her goods, and the larger firms were her best customers. In
the early days of Schools of Design " J." " spent a ten pound note at
Somerset House," but no good really came of it ; the students did not under-
■ stand
* Tin's Plate was not printed, but was deposited in the Library of the House of Commons.
HONITON LACE INDUSTEY. 5
stand the technical requirements of designing for the lace maker, and the
delicately-painted white patterns were of no use to the worker.
At Sidbury I called at " K.'s." She has now given up business in lace and
only keeps a ^mall grocery and sweet shop. There used to be five or six
lace schools here. Now, of course', there are none, and yet " K." thinks it
would be a good thing if the children could be taught lace-making instead
of leaving school " to beg in the street and learn themselves all sorts of
wickedness because they don't know what else to do." The lace industry
is the only industry here, and the 30 or 40 workers hardly have enough
employment to gain their living. I saw one of the workers and bought
from her two little bits of her work, of coarse thread {sec 6).*
4th June. I called upon Mrs. Fowler at Honiton. She is the successor
to Mr. Davis (1), formerly lace-maker by appointment to the Queen. For
the Jubilee celebration the lace-makers of Honiton are going to form a
procession, and already over 100 have sent in their names for this purpose.
Mrs. Fowler thinks there must be at least 150 in the town. None are
under thirty years of age. No children are being taught. She thinks that
not less than three hours a day's practical instruction would be effective in
teaching the elder children in an elementary school to make lace, though two
hours would do for the younger ones. As a rule thread from 12 to 18 " skip "
is used at Honiton. The work made with coarser threads comes from the
neighbourhood. Mrs. Fowler pricks all her patterns for the best work. She
showed me a piece of lace which she is copying for a lady from a Brussels
mixed pillow and needlepoint lace. She employs off and on some 70 workers ;
fifteen years ago she kept 200 at work. Mrs. Fowler considers that a chief
cause of the failure in the lace trade is connected with the unwillingness of
people to believe that Honiton lace cannot be of patterns and quality different
from, and superior to, those of a certain character. Laces of this certain
character, commonly known as Honiton, do not fairly represent the capabilities
of the industry; they are in small demand and not fashionable. But if
new patterned lace made with finer thread is produced, the name Honiton
seems to bar it from the market ; though if it be called by a foreign name
it takes. Mrs. Fowler thinks this is unfair, and instanced how in 1871 the
judges at an Agricultural show put aside a piece of lace 'she submitted,
to which they would otherwise have given a prize, because they were con-
vinced it could not have been made at Honiton. Mrs. Fowler says she
offered to make the lace before the judges : they declined and would not be
convinced. Some months after the exhibition was over she was offered a
prize for the work, which she then, of course, refused. She has been lately
engaged upon some lace, making it from a new design supplied by Mr. C.
Peek, who ordered some lengths of it. I purchased some specimens of
.work here of 12, 14 and 16 skip thread. {See 7.)
. From Honiton I went to Ottery St. Mary's, and there saw " L." Twenty
to fifteen years ago she used to employ 300 workpeople, but now cannot
give regular employment to more than six, who live in Ottery St. Mary's.
Villagers from the neighbourhood occasionally bring in work for her to buy.
Forty years ago she kept a lace school with " as many as 50 children being
taught lace-making at once." In those days the mother and children would
earn as much as the husband; and, indeed, they would sometimes be kept
hard at it "to indulge a drunken and lazy man." Now, however, for neither
good nor bad can they earn anything from lace-making. The gentry in the
district do a little for the industry by procuring orders for lace. Recently
a lace dress was made here, or rather pai^s were made here, in 14 skip
thread, for the Princess Beatrice {see 8).* " L." described the pattern as one
with no " reality " in it, " nothing of sprigs and flowers." I bought a small
specimen as well as a specimen in 12 skip from a "Flanders lace " copied by
" L.'' {see 9).* She has had an order for some yards of this with variation^
made in it.
On Monday 6th June, I went to Exeter en route to Exmouth, and again
called at Mrs. Treadwin's, and had a considerable conversation with her.
She is much averse to the purely literary training in Elementary Schools^
. and
• This Plate was not printed, but was deposited in the Library of tha House of Commons.
124. B
6 COPY OF EEPOET OF THE
and seems to look upon the establishment of technical schools, in which
children will be taught lace-making, as a thing of the immediate future. She
says good qualified lace teachers could be engaged at 12 s. a week. She, herself,
cannot start a school for young children " as the law is against her." She
looks upon the industry, which, nevertheless, is able to produce such fine
work as that she showed me {see specimens in the South Kensington
Museum), as dying and doomed, unless arrangements are made for some
training of a young generation of lace-makers. She pays a fair rate of wages.
Some of her youngest hands get 5 s. and 6 *. a week, wliilst the bes.t workers
may earn from 2 *. to 2 *. 6 <?. a day. The young girls, she gets now, have
passed through the ordinary school teaching, but they are, on the whole,
less proficient at plain needlework even, than those aged eight, whom in
former years she was able to employ. For sorting sprigs, flowers, &c.,
counting them and putting down correct figures, the present children are
not, according to Mrs. Treadwin, as quick or as accurate as those 20 years
ago. Mrs. Treadwin once, ten years ago, offered a prize of 20 /. to the
school who could produce a pupil-teacher able to cut out and make a shirt.
But no applicant ever appeared for the prize.
Mrs. Treadwin finds that lace designing is not much understood at the
School of Art. They can draw well enough, no doubt, but they do not know
what making a pattern for a lace- worker means.
After leaving Exeter, I went to Exmouth, and called on a lace-dealer,
" M." She stated that lace-making is the staple industry of the district all
about Exmouth. Its failure has caused the bitterest distress. Formerly
there were 20 lace schools in the town. Kow there are none. Factory
regulations and School Board rules have greatly helped to get rid of them.
The present 100 workers or less in the town are merely old workers.
Machine laces have no doubt helped towards killing the trade.
" M." has taken several prizes at the Bath and West of England Shows
and at other exhibitions. She makes up her own patterns and pricks them
for the workers. Sometimes she induces a visitor to give her a drawing, at
others she adopts patterns, sprigs, &c., from wall papers, tablecloths, and
"anything." She has sold a little lace lately, and has a good order in hand
for a flounce, the sprigs for which are being worked in the district. She
will eventually see to their being joined together. The flounce is to cost
25 I. a yard, and the order came very soon after some announcement had
appeared that Honiton lace had been worn at the Drawing Room. The school
children of 13 and 14 coming from the schools are not able to be put to 'first
class lace-making. Their fingers are not only too stiff to get into practice,
but the children themselves look down upon lace-making as beneath them,
and will not take to it. " M." says they are taught so many things which
are of no real use to them, that they get a false idea of what they might be
expected, to do. The poverty she says is considerable. She keeps as many
workers going as she can afford to, chiefly at half-time. I bought here
specimens of work in 10, 12, 14, 16 and 20 skip thread, as well as two
specimens of black silk pillow-lace {see 10).* It has recently become a
branch of the industry to fill in a needlepoint net between the sprigs. The
needlepoint workers get a higher rate of pay than that of the pillow-lace
workers. They belong to a better class and are more thrifty. When the
trade was in full swing there was far less poverty than now. Lace exported
being subject to a duty imposed by foreign countries has told against the
industry, as has the importation, without duty, of foreign laces. " M." says
that real good workers may earn in prosperous times as much as 2 s. to
2 s. 6 <f. a day, while an ordinal^ housewife, getting her husband's dinner
and seeing to the house, can earn Is. a day. She named the following
places in the neighbourhood as lace-maiking centres : — Budleigh, Yettington,
Bicton, Woodbury, Knowle, Salterton, dependent upon the industry.
On the 7th June I left for Otterton, where I called upon " N." She said
business had never been so bad as it is now. There are nearly 200 workers
in this village, of whom barely a fourth are at work. Many receive 2 s. 6 d.
a week from the parish, and haVe nothing else to depend upon. The
___^_ scenes
• This Plate was not printed, but was deposited in the Library of the House of Commons.
HONITON LACE INDUSTRY. . . 7
scenes of woe are distressing and freque'nt. " N." keeps a grocery shop,
and the workers come in and cry to have their lace sprigs taken by her and
goods given in exchange ; but she says this state of things cannot go on,
and she will have to shut up her shop and leave the place, unless some
amelioration sets in. Her business has always been with wholesale mer-
chants in the coarser goods, made principally with thread of six to ten
skip {see 11 *). She never cultivated any private custom, though
she has from time to time supplied lace to Exmouth. She now holds a
very considerable stock. American trade used to be good, but since the
imposition of duties it has quite failed.
There used to be a good trade with the North of England, but this has been
destroyed, probably by Nottingham machines and foreign laces. She finds
no signs of revival anywhere. A few children are taught by their parents,
but with no such regularity as at the old lace-schools. She buys no patterns ;
she takes some from the journals, some from the workers, who prick off
flowers from table-cloths, &c. She cannot draw at all. She used to get
laces from Colaton-Ealeigh, Alesbeare, and Topsham. The cheap hybrid
Honiton lace made at Nottingham has vulgarized the commonest genuine
hand-work, reduced its value, and affected its quality.
" 0." said he is the oldest lace trader in the neighbourhood of Otterton,
He had a large business with the wholesale merchants and buyers. He spoke
of the unfair pressure exercised upon the home industry by foreign duties on
English lace. He would not for one moment raise any question as to free
trade in necessaries ; and he thinks that that principle would not be infringed
if a duty were put on articles of mere luxury like foreign laces, so that the
wealth now spent on them might be partly diverted in favour of the home
industry. He noticed the other day that the papers announced that the
Queen had ordered a flounce. That at once gave an impulse. Ladies were
looking into the shops for Honiton lace, and a sale for little pieces was set
up. It is this sort of patronage, he thinks, which revives trade.
At Woodbury, which I next visited, " P.," who keeps a grocer's shop and
deals in lace, said the distress was great. People had not been trained to
any other industry but lace-niaking, and they beg the dealers and anyone
to take their work and keep them out of the union. "P." has about
30 makers at work, chiefly upon the sprigs for the flounce already
mentioned in the Sidmouth notes. I called at the house of three workers,
and examined specimens of their work on the pillows, and purchased one or
two {ste 12).* They said they would be glad, to try new patterns.
This completes my notes upon the condition of the Industry. I attach
the specimens for reference.
In regard to possible improvement I beg leave to submit that the
quality of lace produced at Exetq^r {see specimens in the South Ken-
sington Museum) as well as that illustrated by the samples from Sidmouth,
(4 and 6) Honiton, (7) and Ottery St. Mary, (9),* shows that the industry is
capable of very high development, and of being a source of fair income to
those employed in it. Under altered conditions a better prospect than the
present one might be opened up foi: the majority of lace workers now
engaged upon producing very low priced, and technically poor goods.
The suggestions I would submit may be classed under such headings as
the following : —
I. As to perpetuating the Art.
II. As to a System of Instruction,
III. As to encouraging New Expressions of the Art.
I. As to perpetuating the Art.
How this may be attempted is perhaps more important than anything
else at the present crisis. Without the provision of some means to rear a
generation
" This Plate was not printed but was deposited in the Library of the House of Commons.
124. ' C
8 COPY OF EEPOET ON THE HONITON LACE INDUSTEY.
generation of workers which may succeed the existing one, the industry is
apparently doomed to die out. The Education Act has virtually closed the
cymes' schools where children used to be taught lace-making. The Factory
Acts, 1 believe, also prevent the instruction of young children as formerly.
The literary tendency of the elementary school courses has apparently
cultivated a distaste in children for the industry, and may not have given
them any substitute for the training to a domestic industry such as the lace
schools provided. I would suggest therefore, that some provision might be
made to sanction instruction in lace-making in a few of the Elementary.
Schools in the lace-making districts. Such instruction could, I believe, be
adequate to its intended purpose without detriment to the aim of the
literary instruction, the amount of which would. no doubt reiquire to be
diminished in such cases.
II. As to a System of Instruction.
As regards this the courses of instruction in lace-making for Elementary
Schools might be so arranged as to encourage peculiar ability in making one"
or other of the parts of which a piece of lace is usually composed. Broadly
speaking, a bit of Devonshire pillow-lace is made, up (1) of the "clothing"
or close. lineurlike parts, (2) of the fillings or open ornamental insertions in
the spaces surrounded by the "clothing," and (3) of the grounding. Children
showing an aptitude for one or other of these parts (arid in the best kinds of
work this is found to be the case with adult workers) might be specially
trained to excel in it. Suggestions upon starting cliasses of this description
might be derived from the lace schools in Bohemia and elsewhere.
III. As to encouraging New Expressions of the Art.
The employment of new patterns, and the making of new departures,
'would, I believe, materially aflfect the industry. Fashion and private expe-
riments could, perhaps, be so directed as to exert an influence upon the
employers of labour, who are, of course, the persons by whom any per-
manently effective action in this direction can be taken. Nevertheless it
is possible that something can be done in a way like that which has met
with a certain measure of success in Ireland. For this purpose' steps might
be taken which may be indicated under three sections :
(a). By means to be provided by the Science and Art Department,
lectures upon Devonshire lace might be given and inspections
granted to encourage efforts in designs.
ifi). A private committee might be formed and raise a fund for prizes
to be awarded for improved designs and new experiments in
lace-making.
j[c). A second fund might be raised, or Government Gra,nts offered, for
the awarding of substantial prizes of 10 /. or 20 I. to the better
of the proposed lace-making classes in Elementary Schools.
9th June 1887. Alan S. Cole.
a.
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